Adobe Director 11 Tutorials
Working with 3D / Converting Text to 3D
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Director 11 / Working with 3D / Converting Text to 3D)
Now Director 11 contains several features that let you create and work with 3D objects or even create 3D movies. A 3D cast member contains a complex internal structure that includes model resources, the models themselves, lights and cameras. Each of these objects have their own array of properties, Direct also lets you convert 2D to 3D and then work with the 3D text as you would with any other 3D cast member. You can apply behaviors to the 3D text, manipulate it with Lingo or JavaScript and then view and edit it in the Shockwave 3D Window. There's a special window that I'll demonstrate a little later for working with 3D objects, including the 3D text that you create in Director. You can also add extruded 3D text to a 3D cast member as well as use a library behaviors that let you build and control a 3D environment without any knowledge of Lingo or JavaScript. I demonstrated this Code:Library previously but there are the behaviors under the 3D category that relate specifically with 3D objects. So although scripting is still required for complex 3D projects you can build simple 3D movies with these behaviors alone. In this movie however let me introduce you to the topics of working with 3D objects in Director by demonstrating how to convert 2D text into 3D text. Go ahead and use the Text tool to type out some text on the Stage and then open up the Property Inspector, click on the text and then here in the T ext tab there's a display drop down, this is kind of hidden. You may not have noticed this if you've used Director 11 much but there's a 3D mode right there hidden away and if you choose that Director will extrude that text into a 3D object. Now to modify this 3D object there's another tab that now becomes available, the 3D extruder. Here you have a variety of settings, let me devote the rest of this movie to detailing each of the settings here in the Property Inspector, the 3D extruder tab of the Property Inspector. Starting with Camera Position and Rotation, as with the standard 3D Property Inspector tab you can control Camera Position and Rotation with the values that you enter in the text boxes here at the top of the pane. The default Camera Position represents a vantage point looking up through the middle of the scene. You can also define these settings by using the Shockwave 3D Window which I think is a little bit easier and I'll be demonstrating that in the next movie. You'll also select from among front face, back face and tunnel checkboxes. These options control which sides of the text will appear so here's the front of the text, here's the back of the text and then the tunnel is what connects the two together like so. You also have a smoothness settings, this determines the number of polygons that are used to construct the text, the more polygons that are used the smoother the text appears but the more complex the object is the more processing power it will take to animate it for example. You can also set the tunnel depth, again that's the distance, its filling out the distance between the front face and back face but you can extend this out shorter or longer. Next you have the bevel amount setting, this sets the intensity of that bevel there, the edges are beveled. You can also select a beveled edged type here from the drop down; round or miter, probably better set that first before I demonstrate the bevel amount. Notice that now you can kind of see differences when I move the slider. The default is to have no bevel. You can also select the color and position for the text default directional light, a directional light is a point source light and comes from a specific recognizable direction. You can also select a color for the ambient and background lights in the 3D world, here is the light setting, top left is defaults, notice that there's top center, middle center, autumn center looks like that and here's the directional, color of the directional light and the background light. A lot of settings here, a lot of experimentation that you'll want to do to really become familiar with modifying with your extruded or 3D text here and then you also have a diffuse setting, this is under the shader, texture here, default will remember. Should probably give you some more terms here, the ambient light setting here is diffuse light that illuminates the entire world, background light appears to come from behind the camera, now shaders and shaders properties determine the appearance of the surface of the 3D text model. Textures are 2D images that are drawn on the surface of the text, use the Property Inspector here to assign a texture to the text shader. I'll go ahead and move this out of the way there. So here is a default, you can also use a- actually cast member to apply that texture. We'll choose the default or choose none, you can see that by adjusting the various color chips here for the kind of colored light your applying to it you can really change the way this appears. I should probably point out a little bit more about this shader member option. As with any model if your familiar with 3D modeling programs you can apply texture that uses a bitmap cast member. You can import a bitmap cast member or create a new one in the Paint Window, be sure to give your bitmap cast member a name if it doesn't already have one. You'll assign the bitmap as a texture here in the Property Inspector, select member from the shader texture menu and then enter the name here of the cast member. So for example might call one Metal One or Copper Two or something that's descriptive. Now Director also has a special window, a Shockwave 3D Window that provides an easier way for you to inspect your 3D cast members including those 2D text that you convert to 3D and that's going to be found under window. Shockwave 3D and that brings up this window right here, so let me now move onto the next movie and describe and demonstrate in more detail how to use the Shockwave 3D Window to view and in some cases modify the properties of your 3D cast members.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Director 11 |
| Author: | James Gonzalez |
| SKU: | 33901 |
| ISBN: | 1-934743-84-4 |
| Release Date: | 2008-07-31 |
| Duration: | 9.5 hrs / 107 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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